Texas: Voter Suppression Coming Back To Texas? State’s Halted Voter ID Law Gets Appeals Court Hearing in May | International Business Times

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans scheduled a late May showdown for proponents and opponents of a Texas voter ID law, which the federal appellate court previously halted after finding it discriminatory to black and Latino voters in the state. Earlier this month, the court's 15 judges agreed to reconsider the constitutionality of the law, raising alarm among voting rights advocates who fear the law could be reauthorized ahead of the 2016 presidential election. The May 24 hearing date was set Tuesday, the Austin American-Statesman reported. The Texas voter ID law, passed by lawmakers in 2011, requires the state’s 14.6 million registered voters to show specific forms of picture identification at the polling station. Poor, elderly, racial minority voters and Democrats are least likely to have the forms of ID required at polling station, voting rights advocates have said.

Texas: State Sued Over Voter Registration Policies | NBC

Thousands of Texans are being denied the chance to register to vote, violating federal voting laws, a new lawsuit alleges. "Texas voters will continue to be shut out of the democratic process unless and until Defendants reform their registration practices," alleges the complaint, filed Monday in a federal court in San Antonio by the Texas Civil Rights Project. Plaintiffs in the suit say they tried to update their drivers license and voter registration records through the website of the state Department of Public Safety, and believed they had done so. But when they went to vote, they were found to be unregistered, and forced to cast provisional ballots, which likely won't count. "I felt that my voice was taken away from me when my vote wasn't counted," said Totysa Watkins, an African-American woman from Irving, Texas, who works for a health insurer. "Voting has always been something I value and is a right I have instilled in my children. Texas should not be able to take that away."

Texas: Analysis: Scant Evidence for Abbott’s “Rampant” Voter Fraud | The Texas Tribune

The governor of Texas thinks that fraud in the electoral system that put him and others in office is “rampant.” He can’t back that up. Greg Abbott was asked on Monday what he thought about President Obama’s throwdown last week on the state’s lousy voter turnout. “The folks who are governing the good state of Texas aren't interested in having more people participate,” the president told The Texas Tribune’s Evan Smith at South by Southwest Interactive. The chief of those “folks” would rather limit turnout than expand on what he seems to think is an election system that has run off the side of the road.

Texas: A Voter-ID Battle in Texas | The Atlantic

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals said Wednesday it would rehear a case on Texas’s voter-ID law with its full complement of judges, setting up a major voting-rights battle ahead of the 2016 elections. Wednesday’s order underscores the increased power of the federal appellate courts while Justice Antonin Scalia’s former seat remains vacant on the U.S. Supreme Court. A potential 4-4 deadlock between the justices for the foreseeable future means the Fifth Circuit’s full ruling “may be the final word on Texas’s law,” Rick Hasen, a professor at UC Irvine law, wrote Wednesday. A three-judge panel in the Fifth Circuit ruled last August that the state’s voter-ID measure violated the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965, which banned racial discrimination in election laws. Texas officials then sought a rare en banc review of that ruling, meaning the case would be reheard by the Fifth Circuit’s entire 15-judge bench. The circuit judges granted the request more than six months after it was made.

Texas: Court to re-examine decision striking down of Texas voter ID law | Reuters

A Texas law previously struck down requiring voters to show authorized identification before casting ballots will be re-examined, the U.S. Court for Appeals for the Fifth Circuit said on Wednesday. The court, which said its full bench of judges will participate, did not set a date or elaborate on why it will hold the review of the law a three-judge panel from the court said in an August 2015 decision violated the U.S. Voting Rights Act through its "discriminatory effects." The measure was signed into law in 2011 by then Texas Governor Rick Perry, a Republican, and has been in effect since even as the legal challenges have wound their way through the courts. Plaintiffs have argued the law hits elderly and poorer voters, including minorities, hardest because they are less likely to have such identification. They contend the measure is used by Republicans as a way suppressing voters who typically align with Democrats. The measure, which supporters say will prevent voter fraud, requires voters to present a photo identification such as a driver's license, passport or military ID card.

Texas: Counties grapple with aging electronic voting systems | KXAN

As the 2016 election approaches, Texas counties are looking toward future elections and the possibility that the machines you use to vote might begin breaking down. “The longer we delay purchasing new equipment, the more problems we risk,” the authors of a 2015 report from the Brennan Center for Justice wrote. “The biggest risk is increased failures and crashes, which can lead to long lines and lost votes.” The report points to a lifespan of 10 to 20 years for key components in the electronic systems. Travis County uses machines from 2001. Williamson County uses a system that it purchased around 10 years ago, putting both systems in the range for issues.

Texas: Years After Voter ID Law, Alternative IDs Confuse Texas County Officials | Texas Observer

More than four years have passed since the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature passed a controversial voter ID law, one of the strictest in the nation. At the time, civil rights groups and Democrats pointed out that hundreds of thousands of Texans lacked a driver license or other government-sanctioned forms of photo ID, and that cost and access could be a barrier to acquiring them. In one of the few concessions to opponents, Republicans agreed to create a new form of ID, the election identification certificate (EIC). The EIC is free to any qualifying voter as long as you can produce some combination of an array of underlying documentation, such as a birth certificate, Social Security card and proof of residence. But years into the voter ID experiment, the EIC has been all but forgotten — by voters and by elections administrators alike.

Texas: More than half a million registered Texans don’t have the right ID to vote on Super Tuesday | The Washington Post

As voters go to the polls on Super Tuesday, many will be casting ballots in states that have passed strict election laws that didn’t exist during the last presidential race. Out of the 13 states holding primaries or caucuses, there are five where voters will face new rules: Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia. The laws range from asking voters to present photo IDs at the polls to requiring proof of citizenship when registering to vote. Voting experts say that primary voters tend to be of demographics relatively unaffected by such requirements, as they are typically older and wealthier. The primaries also tend to attract more white voters. Still, Super Tuesday could serve as an early test of how the new laws will play out in the general election in November. This presidential race will be the first since a divided Supreme Court invalidated a key part of the Voting Rights Act and triggered a number of states to pass stiffer requirements for voting.

Texas: Group of Hispanic voters seeks docs in Pasadena voting rights suit | Houston Chronicle

A group of Hispanic voters that accuses the city of Pasadena of diluting its voting rights is asking that a political action committee with ties to the mayor turn over records of communications with voters. The PAC -- Committee to Keep Pasadena Strong -- has received funding from Mayor Johnny Isbell's campaign coffers. It has been subpoenaed for records of communications with voters about local elections and Hispanic voters between 2013 and 2015, among other records, court documents show.

Texas: Democrats Force U.S. House Candidate to Change Name on Ballot | The Texas Tribune

South Texas voters will no longer be able to choose a Ruben Hinojosa to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Ruben Hinojosa. A 33-year-old law student who wanted to go by Ruben Ramirez Hinojosa on the Democratic primary ballot in March will instead go by a different name: Ruben Ramirez. That's because state Democratic party officials are forcing him to change it. Party officials say their decision this week to lop off “Hinojosa” — the surname of the candidate’s mother — from the ballot listing could prevent confusion for voters in Congressional District 15. And they say Ramirez failed to prove he goes by the name Hinojosa. But Ramirez, a McAllen native, accuses the party of launching a “culturally insensitive” effort to hinder his campaign, noting that Democrats have commonly allowed candidates to go by nicknames such as “Chuy.” “I think it’s a lapse in judgment,” the U.S. Army combat veteran and University of Houston law student said late Wednesday. “They’re letting their political friendships pressure them, and they’re caving in to their friends.”

Texas: High Court Rejects Fee Dispute in Texas Redistricting Case | Associated Press

The Supreme Court won't hear an appeal from lawyers for former Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis and others seeking $360,000 in legal fees after challenging state redistricting plans. The justices on Monday let stand a federal appeals court ruling that said the lawyers were not entitled to fees. A three-judge district court blocked the state's redistricting plan ahead of the 2012 elections after Davis and voting rights groups challenged it. But in a separate case, the Supreme Court later eliminated the Justice Department's ability under the Voting Rights Act to identify and stop potentially discriminatory voting laws before they take effect.

Texas: Voter Maps Disputed as Biased to be Used in 2016 Elections | Bloomberg

Texans will vote in the 2016 elections using electoral maps that activists have challenged in court for five years as biased against the state’s burgeoning minority population. A panel of federal judges in San Antonio ruled Friday it’s too close to the March 1 primary to change district boundaries. Civil rights advocates had sought to put in place new maps now to prevent Hispanic and black voters from having their voting strength minimized for another election cycle. The judges said they haven’t made a final decision whether the Republican-drawn districts violate federal voting-rights protections. They said they didn’t want to risk delaying elections or confusing voters so close to the start of voting. Candidates for most elective offices can begin filing to to run on Nov. 14.

Texas: Court orders redistricting maps to stay the same, 2016 elections will proceed | Houston Chronicle

Texas' political maps won't change for the 2016 elections, a federal court has ruled in a decision intended to provide certainty for candidates, election officials and voters ahead of the upcoming cycle. A three-judge panel in San Antonio on Friday rejected a motion to temporarily block a set of redistricting maps passed by the Legislature in 2013 for Congress and the Texas House. Litigation on the maps remains pending, as civil rights groups say they discriminate against minorities. The three-judge panel said it has not reached a final decision and that the current boundaries are being "used on an interim basis only."

Texas: Court: Redistricting maps to stay the same — for now | San Antonio Express-News

Texas' political maps won't change for the 2016 elections, a federal court has ruled in a decision intended to provide certainty for candidates, election officials and voters ahead of the upcoming cycle. A three-judge panel in San Antonio on Friday rejected a motion to temporarily block a set of redistricting maps passed by the Legislature in 2013 for Congress and the Texas House. Litigation on the maps remains pending, as civil rights groups claim they discriminate against minorities. The three-judge panel said it has not reached a final decision and that the current boundaries are being "used on an interim basis only." However, the court made clear it has no intention to tweak the maps before the upcoming March primaries — a move that will avoid a repeat of 2012 when redistricting map litigation threw the election cycle into disarray and caused the primaries to be delayed from March to May. The ruling eases fears of Texas getting bumped from the "Super Tuesday" slate of March primaries.

Texas: Voters report problems at polling locations, frustrated with long lines | Click2 Houston

People across the Houston area are heading to the polls to decide several key issues and pick Houston's next mayor. Some voters, however, have already reported problems at some polling locations. A loose wire is to blame for a voting mishap at one location, where some voters waited over an hour before they were allowed to cast a ballot. "The polls have been stalled, I guess," said Alayna Pagnani Gendron. "I don't know what's going on." At one point, the line at Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church on Waugh Drive stretched out the door, filled with voters who were not allowed to vote. "It was ridiculous. An hour and a half to get the polls open," said Brenda Lemoine.

Texas: Redistricting fight could delay Texas primaries | Lubbock Avalanche-Journal

The month-long registration period for the March 1 Democratic and Republican primaries begins in four weeks but don’t bet the farm the election will be held on that day. If the primaries are delayed once or even twice — as it happened four years ago — blame it on the four-year redistricting fight. You see, as of Friday morning it was unclear whether candidates for congressional and Texas House seats would run under the “temporary” maps the Legislature and then a federal court in San Antonio approved two years ago. The same three-judge panel is expected to rule soon whether the 2014 maps can be used for the rest of this decade or if the boundaries of some districts must be redrawn to protect the voting rights of racial minorities, as the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965 stipulates.

Texas: State Wants Supreme Court to Strike Legal-Fee Award in Voting Case | National Law Journal

Texas wants the U.S. Supreme Court to review an order that forces the state to pay more than $1 million in legal fees to groups that challenged the state’s redistricting plans. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in August ordered Texas to pay the fees, finding lawyers for the state essentially forfeited the issue by failing to make substantive arguments in the lower court. On Thursday, Texas Solicitor General Scott Keller said in court papers that the state planned to appeal to the Supreme Court. Keller didn’t say when his office would file the petition. A spokeswoman for the attorney general’s office was not immediately available for comment. Paul Smith of Jenner & Block, who argued for the challengers in the D.C. Circuit and leads the firm’s appellate and Supreme Court practice, declined to comment.

Texas: State defense of voting laws costs $8 million and counting | Houston Chronicle

Republicans used their majority in 2011 to muscle through the Legislature a controversial voter ID law and new redistricting maps – and ever since Texas taxpayers have been picking up the bill for the state to defend those measures in courts. Texas’ total legal tab to date: more than $8 million, according to data obtained under the state’s Public Information Act. And there’s no immediate end in sight to the court action, which means the price tag is only set to climb for Texas’ efforts to preserve its redrawing of political boundaries and its strict law to require photo identification to vote. Critics of the Republican-championed plans say state leaders have essentially thrown taxpayer money down the drain to defend what they argue are policies intended to discriminate against minorities.

Texas: Travis County to Update Aging Voting Technology With New Tablet-Based System | KUT

Yesterday morning, we heard a story about the nation’s aging voting machines and the problems they could present in the future. But that same report, which warns of trouble ahead for some municipalities, also details how Travis County has developed a new voting system, set to premiere in time for 2018 elections. To anyone over 18, the following scene might sound familiar. “It looks like you’re standing in front of an ATM machine with kind of a pad-like device in front of you, and you click through and make selections for the candidates or the propositions that you’re choosing, and then you cast your vote,” says Ronald Morgan, Travis County's Chief Deputy Clerk.

Texas: Voter ID Battle: Texas Seeks Rehearing, DOJ Seeks Injunction | Texas Lawyer

Texas has asked the full bench of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to rehear civil rights plaintiffs' case against the state's voter ID law after a three-judge panel from the same court ruled that the law discriminates. Because the state's request for a rehearing is pending, and since Texas may also seek a hearing at the U.S. Supreme Court, the Fifth Circuit in a Sept. 2 order rejected civil rights plaintiffs' proposals to have the litigation remanded to the trial court, where a judge could have ordered Texas to immediately start changing how it identifies voters. "We will get those decisions pretty quickly," Rolando Rios, of San Antonio's Law Office of Rolando L. Rios, said about the rulings on the en banc Fifth Circuit and Supreme Court hearings. Rios represents the Texas Association of Hispanic County Judges and County Commissioners, which is an intervening plaintiff in the litigation.

Texas: New Law Aims to Reduce “Rolling Voting” | The Texas Tribune

A soon-to-be law takes aim at the practice of "rolling voting," which critics say can be used to tip the scales in favor of one side in some elections by moving polling places too often. The law's backers say it adds uniformity and predictability to the process by requiring, among other things, that mobile polling locations be open for two consecutive days, eight hours a day, in some cases. That contrasts with some elections, often those held by school districts, in which officials move around the locations for briefer periods, according to the rolling voting opponents.

Texas: Attorney General asks full appeals court to reconsider voter ID ruling | Houston Chronicle

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is asking the full bench of a federal appeals court to reconsider a ruling that found the state's strict voter ID law illegally hindered minorities from casting ballots. The state launched its legal salvo in the voter ID court fight with multiple filings late Friday, including a clear signal from Paxton's office that it will take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary. Earlier this month, a three-judge panel at the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a complex ruling that was largely interpreted as a narrow win for civil rights groups suing the state. The panel upheld one portion of a decision from U.S. District Court Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos of Corpus Christi that found the law obstructed black and Hispanic voters and instructed the lower court to fix what amounted to a violation of the Voting Rights Act. It tossed one ruling that deemed the voter ID law equivalent to a poll tax and rejected another judgment from the lower court that found the law was motivated by racial bias, though the panel ordered the lower court to reconsider that portion of the case.

Texas: Justice Department to 5th Circuit: Texas voter ID law needs to be fixed ASAP | San Antonio Express-News

The Obama administration and several civil rights groups are urging a federal appeals court to fast track the process of temporarily fixing Texas' voter ID law in time for the upcoming Nov. 3 elections. In court filings Thursday, the Justice Department and civil rights groups asked the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to allow a lower court to start getting to work immediately on an interim remedy to the law passed in 2011 by the state's Republican-led Legislature. A three-judge panel at the 5th Circuit ruled in part earlier this month that Texas' strict voter ID measure violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

Texas: Federal Appeals Court Orders Texas to Pay $1M in Legal Fees in Voting Rights Case | National Law Journal

Texas must pay more than $1 million in legal fees to groups that challenged the state’s redistricting plans, a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., ruled Tuesday. Texas forfeited any opposition to fees when it failed to make substantive arguments in the lower court, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said. A three-page advisory filed by the state—contending that Texas became the winner in the redistricting case after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a provision of the Voting Rights Act in Shelby County v. Holder—didn’t cut it, Judge Patricia Millett wrote. “Texas gets no second bite at the apple now,” Millett wrote. “What little argument Texas did advance in its ‘Advisory’ provides an insufficient basis for overturning the district court’s award of attorneys’ fees.”

Texas: State again ordered to pay lawyers’ fees in redistricting case | Austin American-Statesman

In a scolding tone, a federal appeals court panel in Washington, D.C., ordered the state of Texas on Tuesday to pay more than $1 million in attorneys’ fees in a case challenging district boundaries drawn by the Republican-led Legislature. First under the direction of then-Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott and now under Attorney General Ken Paxton, the state has been fighting a court order for more than a year to pay the lawyers who battled the state over the issuance of redistricting maps for the Texas House, Texas Senate and U.S. House of Representatives.

Texas: Lightning strikes more common in Texas than in-person voter fraud, says Cory Booker: True | PolitiFact

The Voting Rights Act turned 50 on Aug. 6, but the anniversary also doubled as an occasion for voting rights advocates to celebrate a new victory: The day before, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Texas’s 2011 photo ID law was unconstitutional, because it violated the rights of minority voters. Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., went on ABC’s This Week on Aug. 9 to explain why he supported the decision: "Take Texas for example, where Lyndon Johnson's obviously from, they passed these voter ID laws. In the decade before it, 10 years, they only prosecute two people for in-person voter ID, only two people. You're more likely to get struck by lightning in Texas than to find any kind of voter fraud." We were surprised by the colorful comparison. So we decided to see if we could figure out whether lightning really is more likely to strike in Texas than people trying to cast ballots using fake identities. … An expert from the National Weather Service confirmed to us that the probability of being struck by lightning in Texas is slightly lower than the national average, right around 1 in 1.35 million. So how does this 1 in 1.35 million chance compare to the probability of finding voter fraud?

Texas: Study: Law Discouraged More Than Those Without Voter ID | The Texas Tribune

Texas’ strict voter identification requirements kept many would-be voters in a Hispanic-majority congressional district from going to the polls last November — including many who had proper IDs — a new survey shows. And the state's voter ID law – coupled with lackluster voter education efforts – might have shaped the outcome of a congressional race, the research suggests. Released on Thursday, the 50th anniversary of the federal Voting Rights Act, the joint Rice University and University of Houston study found that 13 percent of those registered in the 23rd Congressional District and did not vote stayed home, at least partly because they thought they lacked proper ID under a state law considered the strictest in the nation. And nearly 6 percent did not vote primarily because of the requirements.

Texas: Road Ahead Murky After Voter ID Ruling | The Austin Chronicle

Two weeks ago, Texas' voter ID law was discriminatory. This week, it's still discriminatory, just for slightly different reasons. On Aug. 5 – the eve of the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act – the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals issued the latest ruling in the seemingly endless cycle of appeals against Texas' 2011 voter ID law. The state of Texas was appealing a 2014 ruling by U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos (see "Judge Throws Out Texas Voter ID Law," Oct. 10, 2014) throwing the law out on three grounds: 1) that it discriminated against minority voters; 2) that it was purposefully discriminatory; and 3) that a costly photo ID made it a de facto poll tax. But in an opinion authored by Judge Catharina Haynes, a three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit took a different tack.

Texas: A Limited Victory for Voting Rights in Texas | The New Yorker

In 2013, when the Supreme Court effectively struck down a crucial section of the Voting Rights Act, the disagreement between the five conservative Justices in the majority and the four moderate liberals in dissent was about history as much as law. For the conservatives, Chief Justice John Roberts, Jr., wrote, “Our country has changed” since the statute became law fifty years ago. Devices that once blocked minorities’ access to the ballot, like the voter fees known as poll taxes, had been outlawed for more than forty years. The percentages of whites and minorities who register to vote and then go to the polls are approaching parity in the South and other parts of the country where, half a century ago, they were far apart. It is no longer necessary, Roberts went on, for the federal government to pre-approve any proposed changes to election laws in states with records of entrenched discrimination, as the statute had required since 1965.

Texas: New study suggests Voter ID altered District 23 race | San Antonio Express-News

The day after the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Texas’s Voter ID law has a discriminatory effect on elections, a new study found some evidence in our backyard. A joint study by Rice University and the University of Houston examined Voter ID’s impact on the 2014 District 23 Congressional race between Democratic incumbent Pete Gallego and Republican challenger Will Hurd. District 23 covers 800 miles of Texas borderland, and stretches from San Antonio to El Paso. Bexar County contains 42 percent of the district’s registered voters. Given that the two major critiques of Voter ID — enacted in 2011 with Republican support, and Democratic opposition — are that it has a discriminatory impact on minority voters and that the GOP pushed it in order to help their own political cause, the 2014 election in District 23 provided the research group a perfect test case. “The great thing about CD-23 was that it allowed us to look at both of those things at the same time, because it’s a Latino majority district, but it’s also one that’s politically relevant,” said Mark Jones, the fellow at Rice’s Baker Institute for Public Policy.